Humanoid robots shatter sprint records but stumble in real-world tasks

At the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, two robots ran the 100-meter dash faster than Usain Bolt's record, with times of 9.47 and 9.39 seconds, before crashing into a padded wall. The five-day event features 51 competitions, including kickboxing and soccer, with robots from 16 countries. Despite these athletic feats, experts note that such specialized robots often fail at mundane tasks like folding laundry due to their inability to handle unpredictable real-world environments.

The Beijing games feature 51 events spanning kickboxing, table tennis, and soccer, with robots from 16 countries—though Chinese manufacturers dominate the field. Beyond the sprint, one robot beat the human standing high jump record, and another successfully played tennis against a human opponent, showing adaptive behavior in unpredictable settings.

However, the failures were equally notable: most sprinters slammed into padded walls, one caught fire, and a weightlifting robot toppled into the judges' table. MIT's Rodney Brooks cautioned that impressive single-task performances mislead observers into assuming general competence, noting these machines struggle with mundane real-world chores like folding laundry.